Sharpest

Bitcoin ripped through $69,000 Wednesday, climbing as much as 8.7% to an intraday high of $69,749. That’s the steepest one-day move since March 4 and the highest price Bitcoin has touched since June 1. Traders hadn’t seen a green candle like this in more than five months.

So where does Bitcoin go next? The charts have one read, and prediction markets have another. A mere 24 hours ago, traders on Myriad—a prediction market operated by Decrypt’s parent company—were sure there was more pain in store for Bitcoin ahead. Now, it’s a coin flip, with odds moving fast.

What a difference a squeeze makes.

The trigger for today’s big move doesn’t appear to be crypto-native. The U.S. Treasury said Wednesday it will at least double its long-bond buybacks, from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation starting September 9, pushing long-end yields down and weakening the dollar. These types of moves typically bode well for risk assets, like crypto, because they loosen financial conditions—lower yields cut the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset like Bitcoin, and a weaker dollar makes dollar-priced assets cheaper for foreign buyers, the same dynamic analysts have already nicknamed ‘QE Lite.’

The timing also lined up with a White House meeting between crypto executives and regulators, plus a fresh SEC proposal easing registration rules for some digital-asset offerings. It was a perfect storm, in the best way for crypto bulls, and the move overextended fast.

CoinGlass’s liquidation panel showed $1.14 billion in shorts wiped out across crypto in a single hour, with Bitcoin alone accounting for $677.64 million of that. Crypto-linked stocks followed the squeeze higher, with Strategy up nearly 12%, Coinbase up 9%, and Circle and BitMine both gaining roughly 9-10% on the day.

Predictors scramble to catch up

Nobody saw it coming, and prediction markets are showing it. Myriad’s “BTC next move” market—wagering on a pump to $84,000 against a dump to $55,000—had traders leaning roughly 70% toward the dump just days ago.

By Wednesday afternoon, those odds had collapsed to a near coin flip: 51.9% on $55K, 48.1% on $84K.

The swing isn’t isolated to Myriad. Polymarket’s flagship 2026 Bitcoin price market was pricing a 56% chance BTC touched $55,000 before year-end and just 51% odds of a run to $75,000 as of last week.

On Kalshi, traders were even more cautious, giving Bitcoin a 54% shot at clearing $67,500 in August and 31% at $70,000—both thresholds Bitcoin blew through Wednesday.

The split is the story. Near-term predictors got caught flat-footed by a 7% green day they hadn’t priced. The year-end markets barely flinched. Prediction markets have been setting volume records as more traders hedge real positions with them, which makes the Myriad flip today less a forecast than a recap of who got squeezed.

The next line in the sand sits at $70,284, the lower edge of a resistance band on Bitcoin’s chart. A daily close above it opens room toward $73,245; losing $68,000 drags Bitcoin back inside the range that’s trapped it since June.